Sorry this is so late, I… don't really have an excuse. Hmm.
Inspired by the video on Youtube called "Heroes - Sylar and HRG - Circus". I would link to it, but the document uploader is being silly. Go and watch it- seriously! It's absolutely amazing.
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The first time Gabriel saw the blood on his hands, it terrified him.
It hadn't happened like in the movies. It wasn't like his mind blanked out, or like he lost control, he had known exactly what he'd been doing. But he hadn't really been himself. He'd been too focused, too determined, too sure. He'd been too intent on finding out how it was supposed to work to really realize that he was ki-
Even thinking the word made him gag.
So Gabriel washed his hands. Washed them again and again, scrubbing furiously until tiny cuts and scrapes he hadn't noticed before started to bleed. Tried to think that it was poetic. Could only really consider it hygienic.
And most of all, he vowed that it wouldn't happen again. Maybe some small, insistent part of his mind just thought this was all interesting, but he couldn't take another's life again. He'd honestly prefer to die.
-
The second time Gabriel came back to himself enough to feel blood trickling down his fingers, all he could feel was shock.
He thought (rather dully) that it was probably the trauma. Too much had happened at once, with the powers and Elle and the irresistible urge to find out how it worked. He couldn't even bring himself to feel guilty. He could only feel… relieved. Which was disgusting, and wrong, because he knew perfectly well what he had just done. It was morally wrong, it was despicable, but it had been instinct. He hadn't wanted to, not really. It had just… happened.
But the worst part of all was that a tiny little part of him was glad. Gleeful at this new power he possessed. Curious, and anxious, and demanding that he try it out. And despite the shock, despite his scrambling efforts to pretend that that hadn't just happened, he still knew that he had to suppress that gladness. It wasn't right. It was sick.
He ran outside- he wasn't sure where to- just to feel a breeze through his hair, ordinary honking and screeching from the traffic outside, to calm himself down. Ordinary life, he had to make it good enough. Somehow.
When he finally got back home, he saw the dull red handprint he'd inadvertently made on his door, and nearly fainted.
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The third time he pulled his hands away to examine the blood that had stained them, he figured out that he could pretend it wasn't there. If he didn't look at it again, he could tell himself that it was paint, or water. He didn't have to feel wracked with guilt while searching for a sink.
That was a relief. When there was no guilt to intervene, he could concentrate on internalizing the power, adapting to it, making it part of himself. And that was the only good part of it all, playing with a new power- it always had such a spark. A special little tingle.
The first power, his telekinesis? It had never lost that unique feeling, and he still used it whenever it could. But he had gotten bored of the shattering after a few days. It wasn't very useful, and it definitely wasn't adaptable. He had found himself, then, thirsting for a new power, like it was a toy, a novelty. He had tried to repress that hunger, but after a week or so, he didn't want to stop it anymore. He craved it, needed it, to the point where it didn't even matter what kind of power it was.
And the blood on his hands was just a side effect of that.
He hoped.
-
After a while, he lost track of the numbers. It wasn't that important anymore; blood was blood. And he got much more disgusting fluids on his hands half the time.
It wasn't the blood that mattered, anyway, it was the hunt. Tracking down the most useful, most entertaining powers. Bringing them in. Figuring out exactly what made his victim tick. It was the most exciting game, and there was nothing like a good chase to give him a burst of energy that could leave him flying high.
Killing- to obtain powers- was becoming a drug for him, he sometimes abstracted. An obsession. Maybe a problem, but much more likely a reason to keep going, keep searching. He didn't have a choice, for that matter. People had started noticing the… murders. Patterns were being found. He couldn't go back home.
But of course, he was keeping a hold on his sanity. He was keeping a clear divide between the killing and the powers, he often told himself. One was just a necessity, the other the thing he really craved. And, as long as he could remember that difference, he wasn't really a murderer. More like… a collector.
A collector of rare and supernatural powers who culminated each find by slicing open a head or two.
Yeah.
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Then… he visited the Walkers.
It was supposed to be simple. He had planned on walking into the house, waiting until the rest of the family was out of sight, and only then taking the man's power. But he had stumbled upon the man's wife, and she had had nearly jumped out of her skin in shock… and… he had liked that. It had sent a surge of energy running up through his spine, to be caught off guard like that. It had been… fun.
Sylar was discovering that he liked this kind of fun.
So he made it a game, to terrify the couple. And, for the first time, he killed someone just for show. The woman didn't have a power, but she was in the way, and, and, he wanted to. That was all.
He was disappointed in the man, though. He hadn't put up much of a fight (even though Sylar had frozen him in place right away). It had been all too easy to kill him, and Sylar vented his anger at that by trying out the new power on its original owner, even before he washed the blood off his hands. And it helped; at least, a little. There was a beautiful smell of irony about it.
But… he wanted more.
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He returned to the scene of the crime, briefly, hidden in the background, to see what the police thought of his little game, and realized in doing so what he'd been missing all along.
An audience.
It was unusually gratifying to watch expressions of horror unfold on their faces, to listen to their muted whispers as they tried to figure out how it had been done. He felt something warm in his chest that hadn't been there in quite a while- pride. It was a heady feeling. It made him want to go out and find another power, very soon, so he could make an even bigger display, a more impossible one, to give them something to really marvel at-
And Sylar caught himself.
He wasn't going to cross his self-defined line. He killed for the powers, nothing else. He wasn't just a serial killer, he had a purpose. Okay? Okay.
-
Time passed, and the once-squeamish Gabriel Gray became accustomed to many things he'd never even thought of before. Sylar wasn't afraid of blood; in fact, he welcomed it. Blood was a sign of victory. Dried blood under his fingernails served as a happy reminder of powers well won. And kills- but he never thought about that (directly, at least).
It was blood that figured in life-or-death situations so many times, blood that held answers and questions, blood with which he traced patterns on the floor. His own blood that taunted him with his mere morality at first- and then, later, that reminded him of never-ending life.
But he still washed his hands so very carefully after each encounter. It gave him a sense of finality, closure. It gave him time to think over what had happened, his good moments and (few) mistakes. And, most of all, it gave him a chance to reflect on his 'performance', to bask in success.
Maybe that was why he needed to know, so desperately, who else shared the blood that flowed through his veins.
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Warning: EXCESSIVE bragging to follow
Since this is my 20th oneshot in this collection, I thought it'd be interesting to show you guys the stats this story has been getting.
Views: Over 12,000 total. Each individual part has at least two hundred, and the first chapter has nearly three thousand.
Traffic: Highest traffic reported was on April 28th, when the story got 685 views total. That was right after I released chapter 19 (high traffic was definitely due to the finale). Typically, a new part will get around 2-3 hundred views on the first day for the story overall.
Length: The longest oneshot currently in this is slightly over 2000 words, and the shortest has about 500.
Also: With this oneshot added, the collection should be at 20,000 words exactly... except that the word count apparently just went nuts. Oh well.
Enjoy. :)